Chapter Eight

Killian POV

He's not going to let this go and he's going to search into this for answers.

“This isn’t finished,” he says without looking back.

“No,” I agree. “It isn’t.” Not for the reasons he thinks though.

I watch as he leaves with his men and I stay standing in the same spot as the door closes behind them. The air in the room is heavy now, but I don't speak again, not until Brannick clears his throat.

“You’ve never been so quick to sever a pact,” he says.

“This one wasn’t worth the risk.” Okay, originally it was, but not now that Aurora is my fated mate.

“Then I hope,” Ysa murmurs, watching me too closely, “you’re not protecting more than your territory.”

I don’t answer, because I am and I know I am, and if they ever find out what I’m truly guarding, it won’t just be this alliance that collapses.

Everything around me will shatter.

The moment that I step out of the chamber, the air feels heavier. It's like the Veilmother herself is watching me from the rafters of this cursed house. It has to be cursed for me to get a fated mate. She's no doubt smiling down at the disruptions that she has caused with one single fated bond. It's not even like this is just forbidden because it's a fated bond, Aurora is my wife's child.

I know that her mother will feel the changes, the way the air no doubt shifts under the weight of me canceling the wedding and the binding. She won't be happy, I know that much.

I find her in the west corridor, where sunlight spills in from the courtyard windows. She’s smiling and laughing softly at something the maid says. She is dressed up in silver and pearl like she's the one being offered to another pack.

She doesn't notice me at first, not until I'm close enough that my shadow touches her feet. She was always so beautiful, and I would tell her daily how beautiful she was, I would tell her how she's the most beautiful woman I've seen, only now it's not true.

Her daughter is. To me, her daughter is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I never thought it before this fated bond, I never spent enough time looking at her to know. Now that I do know, I can't stop the thought. Everytime I look at her, and compare her and her daughter, I wish it was her daughter looking at me and not her.

She turns, and the smile vanishes.

“I've done it,” I say. “The bond’s been called off. The ceremony’s not happening, Rosa.”

Her eyes narrow into something sharp and unyielding. “You canceled it?”

“I had to and I gave the council my reasons. Caelan’s border movements, the instability, the risk to Nightwind’s standing if—”

“You told them that? That you fear Caelan can’t control his wolves?” She steps closer, her voice rising. “Do you know what you’ve just done?”

“I protected this pack,” I say coldly. “I protected Aurora.”

“She doesn’t need your protection,” she snaps. “She needs to serve the role she was born for.”

“She wasn’t born for that. She was used for it.”

“She’s already there, been presented!” Her voice carries through the corridor. She's in the bonding quarters, laid out like every other woman who has ever followed tradition, she's waiting for a male who now isn't coming because you got soft!"

I clench my jaw so hard that it aches. “It doesn’t matter what she’s doing,” I bite out. “Or where she is, all that matter sis that the deal is dead.”

She stares at mer, and her lips press together, her hands tremble and I can feel the fury radiating off her. I can see the panic as well, bleeding through the cracks in her pride.

“You’re going to tell her,” she says. “Since you’re so certain of this choice, you can explain to her why she’s lying there, made up like a prize, waiting for a man who’s already been dismissed.”

I don't answer and I don't waste my time arguing with her. Instead, I nod, because if anyone is going to look Aurora in the eyes and tell her this, and see her face when she finds out she's not been taken to another pack, it's me. I should be the one to make her aware she's not been treated like cattle.

Walking down the halls in silence, I go past the eastern wing, and the quiet seems to hang heavy over everything now. This part is quiet and empty. No one is allowed in the mating room or the area around it. Not the staff, the guards, or anyone. Only the intended pair and male who is claiming her is.

The door is slightly ajar, and I push it open quietly, I'm not prepared for what I know I'm about to see... There she is.

Aurora lies on the center of the bed, wrapped in soft white sheets, her bare skin exposed to the sunlight spilling in through the high window. Her hair fans across the pillows. Her eyes are closed, lips slightly parted, chest rising and falling with slow, careful breaths like she’s trying to prepare herself for something she doesn’t want.

Her hand is between her legs, it's part of tradition. Until now, a female isn't allowed to touch herself in this way. But on the night she's going to be claimed, to be mated, she's meant to. To ensure she's turned on and ready for him.

She doesn’t know. She has no idea that Caelan isn't come for her, and I can see her hand still rubbing between her legs. She was going to let him, she was really going to let him mate with her, despite her being fated to me?

My hand grips the doorframe hard, my fingers curling so much against the wood my knuckles turn white. I can smell her from here, not just her scent, but the bond... the way it signs through the space between us is like a thread that's about to snap.

For a moment, I forget why I came and I forget what I’m supposed to say.

AllI can focus on and see is the curve of her throat, the flush along her chest and the way her fingers on her free hand clutch slightly at the sheets like she's trying not to tremble, and I know, deep in the marrow of my bones, that if I step inside, if I shut this door behind me, there will be no turning back. I won't be able to stop myself.

I’m not Caelan.

I'm still the man the bond chose, so I should do this, shouldn't I? I'm the male that her wolf responds to, and every part of me, every breath, instinct and dark twisted thought wants to close the distance between us. It wants to crawl over her body until she's looking up at me instead of waiting for someone else.

I don’t move, not yet. I open my mouth to speak, but no words come out, because there’s no way to tell her the truth without letting her see what it’s doing to me.